


Loyalty, Boredom, Violence, Weakness

by HaroThar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Derogatory Language, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Canon, Speciesism, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: Lotor's generals had to come from somewhere. What could've put them out at the edge of the universe, far from their empire and serving the banished prince? And, perhaps more importantly, why did they stay?
Kudos: 16





	1. Loyalty

Narti’s facial markings hid the heat pits in her face, the primary method through which she was able to “see” the world around her. Apparently this was comparable to wearing heat-vision goggles, but. Well. She wasn’t one to say.

On her mother’s planet, this was natural, normal, “eyes” were things that edible creatures had. In her father’s empire, this put her at a disadvantage.

She’d been moved to the prince’s court as a demotion, the tossing out of weaker soldiers to the son that Zarkon hated but could not, even as the emperor, kill. Yet even though the prince was self-absorbed and had markedly little interest in the Galra beneath his rule, her time with him had still been substantially better than it had in the empire proper.

She’d liked working alongside the planet’s denizens, rather than slaughtering them until the rest were too frightened to rise up. She’d liked Lotor’s novel solutions. Felt a strange pride in being part of the highest quintessence yields in the empire, and at the fastest rate. She was still treated as something odd, a half-breed at best with no eyes and no voice, but she did her work and her heat pits let her navigate just enough that she was mostly left alone.

And it was her heat pits, too, that located the prince’s cat when Zarkon had ordered an immediate pull of every Galra from the planet’s surface. It was trapped behind the door of the prince’s quarters, but fortunately, Narti had never been easily thwarted by locks.

She’d been grateful for a creature to cling to, when Zarkon announced that he was stripping his son of his place in the empire, and that all Lotor’s borrowed forces would be returning to Zarkon’s direct rule. That any embarrassment to the empire who would choose Lotor over their emperor was welcome to board his one remaining vessel before they departed. 

Everything of value, she’d taken planetside with her. Everything of value, she’d taken when she left. Every worldly belonging that she cared about was in the bag slung over one shoulder, so she hadn’t even needed to pack.

She’d never approached the prince before.

She knew it wasn’t a good time. The planet was still burning, she was certain, though through space, she could not hear it. But there would never be a good time, to inform the man that his forces were down to one.

As the door opened, she “saw” him in his chair, strangely vulnerable, heels pulled up onto the lip of his seat and arms around his knees. It lasted only a moment, a flicker, and with far starker heat she “saw” the energy of his sword unsheath as he stood. But, as soon as the door opened, the cat began to yowl and struggle, so she quickly dropped her hold.

“Kova!” Prince Lotor exclaimed with surprise, the heat of his sword disappearing as his form knelt, scooping up the cat. His armor was thick and cold, so the warm-blooded cat stood out starkly against him.

“Thank you,” he said, sounding shocked and heavy both, and she bowed low with her fist over her heart, tail flicking with nerves her immobile face could never show. The cat was still meowing emphatically, scolding its master, but the effect was ruined as it groomed his cheek with vigor.

“I, had thought I lost him too, in the flame,” the prince admitted, Narti rising from her bow. “Though you must move quickly. My father departs shortly, and he will not wait for you.”

Narti shook her head. She unzipped her bag and pulled out her pad, small ears perked towards her prince for the changes in his breath, the shifting of his feet, the way Kova’s scolding melted into motorboat purrs.

I cannot speak, she typed, having memorized the places of letters despite the fact she could not read them, do you know sign?

She held the pad out to Lotor, and when he took it his attention was stolen by something out the window. Likely the fleet departing, silent in the void of space.

“No,” he said, his head tilted back towards her pad, “but I can learn.”

\--

“An edifice like this,” Lotor said, pausing to hoist himself up onto another probably-structurally-unsound boulder in the side of the cliff, “would have been used primarily for observation. Likely of planetary movements or the weather, given its location.”

Narti and Kova were still getting used to sharing brain space, but she had… _mostly_ gotten acclimated to seeing through his eyes. It was really, really nice being able to see buttons without using her pad’s screen reader. There were so many details that technology simply missed, and Narti was also sorting through her opinions on _colors!_ Apparently cats could only see some of the colors that Galra could, but if you asked Narti, these were more than enough colors as is. She helped Kova up onto the rock ledge and used his eyes and her mother’s blood to leap deftly up. Her heat pits were out of commission, the altitude too high to climb without her helmet on, lest she lose her breath.

“They would’ve actually used the ships they traversed through space in to build it, given their highly maneuverable state, and the fact that the structure is located on top of a mountain.”

Seeing colors also meant that she now knew Lotor had modeled his armor, and Narti’s, after Kova, which was equal parts hilarious and charming. She’d known he liked the cat, but wasn’t this a little much? Not that she would ever sign anything against it. It wasn’t as though she minded, and sharing nearly-identical armor with a man who was supposed to be her vast superior was nice. Made her feel appreciated. 

“The Alteans in charge of the station would’ve lived there permanently, receiving visitors sparsely, and was best suited to those who—”

She caught him by the wrist at the first sound of the stone crumbling, her tail wrapping around his waist as his footing suddenly vanished.

“My thanks,” he said, breathing a little harshly when she settled him onto the same outcropping she was on, and she nodded. “It seems you know the way up better than I.”

It was really more of a vibe. Lizard hindbrain and all that. But she wasn’t necessarily going to discourage that line of thought. He followed her, from that point, prattling on about Altean architecture and customs and how they acted when they were guests on someone else’s planet versus how they were believed to have acted whilst on their own.

At the top, she asked him exactly what they were doing in these ruins, again?

“In exiling me, my father forfeited the right to call my interest in archeology ‘a childish waste of time,’ so! I am indulging!”

Narti’s face couldn’t smile like most Galra’s could, but she felt the vestigial muscles pulling at her nonetheless. It was good, seeing him able to make jokes about it. He’d been such a wreck, right after it had happened. Angry. Sometimes violent. Lashing out and occasionally unpredictable. But, she thought, he’d grown some from it too. He didn’t take anything for granted, anymore, and he was decidedly less self-absorbed than the royal prince she’d first worked for. 

Or maybe that was just him finally getting out from under the expectations his father had placed on the heir to the Galran throne.

“That it should still be in such a pristine state,” Lotor murmured, almost to himself, though his comm was still on. He turned to face her, grinning. “Photograph everything!”

She gave a loose salute that would’ve gotten her dismembered by any other superior officer, and pulled out her pad, snapping a quick shot of him crouched in front of the locking mechanism. 

“This high above the clouds, it must have been spared the majority of weather damage. It doesn’t seem to have any particular fortifications,” Lotor remarked, half-teacherly, half delighted like a little kit. “I don’t suppose lock picking is on your list of unexpected yet helpful skills?”

Narti gently nudged him aside with her tail and picked the lock, Kova hopping up onto his shoulder to bunt against his helmet, moving as little as possible in the thin air.

“Extraordinary,” Lotor praised as the door slid open. “Will your wonders never cease?”

I am an enigma, she told him. He chuckled as he entered, pulling off his helmet now that the climb was done. 

“That you are,” he said, breathing carefully, testing the air on his unsuspecting lungs. She left her own helmet on, thank you very much. She was fond of Lotor—very much so—but sometimes she suspected the man was perhaps a little bit of an idiot. Just a bit; he was easily the smartest person she’d ever known. Just like. A stupid genius, was the thing.

Lotor moved into what must have been the main bedroom, Kova hopping off his shoulders in the threshold and returning to Narti, who scooped him up.

“The clothing here is still intact!” he cried gleefully from the room, the sound of drawers opening and closing punctuating his words. She chuckled to herself, tail twitching at the tip, and wandered through the facility.

She came to a halt before the machinery, old but not looking overly broken down. With a bit of doing, it might actually work, but between the two of them Lotor was the engineer. There was a small 2x2 keypad in the center of the console, three of the keys with worn faces, each more heavily degraded than the last.

Time and finger oils had left their mark. Narti could probably guess the five number sequence—for some reason it never occurred to her that it would be any number other than five.

_Bring Lotor here._

_Agreement._

She and Kova didn’t really use words, when they communicated. It was more of the projection of desires, of feelings. It was simultaneously natural and difficult. 

“Kova, Kova _Kova no!”_ Lotor shouted, followed by the heavy thunk of an object hitting the floor and pat pat pat of cat paws. Narti tried a couple different sequences in short order, guessing based on how much the buttons were eroded, how early they were pressed. She got it right just as Lotor arrived, scooping up and scolding his naughty cat, and the machinery whirred, coughed, sputtered, then flickered into life.

Lotor was still a moment, Kova lending insight as to the strange symbols and flickering lights he was staring at. Narti couldn’t parse them, but her tail flicked with pride. She lifted her pad and took a picture.

“See this is what I mean; how did you do this?” Lotor asked, grinning with a hint of fang as he plopped Kova back across her shoulders. She pointed at the keypad and he laughed brightly, as he only ever did when there was no one to hear him but the cat and her. It was slowly happening more and more, as they moved away from the death of the planet they’d met at.

But she also knew these bright moments were fleeting. She moved throughout the building and photographed everything as he fiddled with the machine. She knew that he had plans, not all of which she was privy to. She knew that he was, one by one, setting things in motion, and as soon as they started spinning the two of them would not go on endeavors like this much, if at all.

She knew this was a precious interlude. She photographed him smiling, guileless and unchecked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/concrit always appreciated!


	2. Boredom

“Aw, _c’mon_ booooss,” Ezor wheedled, her appendage flicking with tightly coiled energy as she sat, half reclined, on her captain’s desk. “I didn’t think it was that bad!”

“You didn’t—! Ezor, you stole 950,000 GAC from the empire’s coffers and killed three people!”

“They weren’t even Galra,” she contested, scratching at the chipping paint of her standard armor. Why did only people with _ranks_ get to have color on their armor, seriously, what was up with that?

“One of them was! He was just as Galra as you are!”

“Oh,” Ezor stilled, feeling maybe possibly _slightly_ bad about killing another mutt. Mongrels had to stick together and all that. “But hey, isn’t that just proof that I’m, like, desirable? I’m lethally good in a fight, that’s a pretty good Galra trait right?”

 _”Ezor,”_ her captain whined, her head buried in her hands. 

“I know, I know, ‘I keep causing problems;’ I promise I’ll be super well-behaved from here on out, ancestor’s honor,” she swore, lifting her hand and placing the other over her heart.

“No, Ezor, there’s not going to be a ‘here on out.’”

Well that wasn’t good.

The captain lifted her face to stare Ezor right in the eye. “Ezor, you’re one of the _most_ promising soldiers I’ve seen in centuries. _Why?”_

Ezor shrugged uncomfortably, but the captain didn’t look away from her. She blew out a sigh with a sputter and figured a half-truth was the best option here.

“I ate planetside food. I needed the GAC to buy more.”

_”Ezor!”_

“I know—”

“After all those PSAs about food addiction—”

“Yeah—”

“Through the _entirety_ of your training!”

“I know, I know! It just smelled good and I got curious!” And she wasn’t lying, exactly. She _had_ eaten planetside food like a lesser race and she _was_ using the stolen GAC to buy more off the black market. But those were easier, lighter, paler truths to admit than the heart of it, which was: 

It was something to do.

“So what’s going to happen to me now?” Ezor asked, and she couldn’t quite keep the youth out of her voice, couldn’t _quite_ keep it from going small. 

But somehow, it worked in her favor. The captain looked at her, and her expression softened. “Ezor, you know I am extremely fond of you.” Yes, a pretty young thing writhing in the bed of the first superior she found actually entertaining tended to foster fondness. “But I can’t excuse this.”

“So, what,” Ezor asked, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice, her wicked smile in place, “you’re gonna throw me out the airlock now? Shoot a plasma bolt through my skull?”

“No, no,” the captain sighed, rubbing at her eye like she was tired. She probably was. Ezor knew her sleep schedule; it was kinda atrocious, even by Galran standards. “I should, mind you. But I won’t. For better or worse, I like you, Ezor.”

Well, “not dead” was a pretty good start. Ezor listened closely, watching the captain pull over a data pad.

“I’m exiling you. Pack your things, you get a fighter ship and a movement’s worth of water and provisions. Just regular provisions. If you want to feed your addiction you’ll have to do that on your own.”

Ezor nodded. She still had ten, maybe twenty thousand GAC hidden away that hadn’t been discovered when her operation was blown open. She could fly the fighter out past imperial lines, stow away on some supply ship back. Some selective invisibility, a little color morphing, and nobody would even be able to identify her. Maybe on the ground somewhere she’d even find something interesting to do. 

“Look, I hear the banished prince is taking in other exiles. Maybe you’ll find work there.”

Yeah, some spoiled little soft palm who was too much of an embarrassment to rule a planet he’d been handed. She shoved boys like that into lockers during her downtime. But…

“That’s a good idea.” She leaned in to kiss the captain’s cheek. “Thanks,” she said, a little more genuinely than she might have intended to.

But she was alive, and she knew that wasn’t exactly a small feat, in light of what she’d done. She grabbed her things, stowed the GAC down her panties, and took a fighter out the airlock before anyone could change their mind.

Things would work out just fine for her; she wasn’t worried.

\--

“So he was like, ‘you can cut a rock into paper thin slices,’ which is how I knew he was lying. What kind of rock doesn’t chip? Just doesn’t make sense.”

Ezor’s attention was stolen from the _positively riveting_ conversation of her crewmates, of which she had, like, maybe ten, by a beep on her pad. The small number of fellow soldiers and the equally small number of outdated, old-model sentries meant that everyone in Lotor’s task force had to work hard to pull their weight, though some were worked harder than others.

“Ezor, did you just get _another_ mission?” Xex asked. She only knew his name due to the number of names there were to learn.

“Sure did,” she chirped, appendage flicking with interest. She would be taking a couple newer model sentries off the hands of Warlord Veigthan, someone whose territory they were flying close to. Her boundaries were simple: don’t get caught, and don’t break the sentries more than a reasonable amount. Tricky. Tricky indeed.

“Man, why does Prince Lotor hate you so much?” Tarra asked with a laugh, sounding almost sympathetic. 

“Dunno,” she lied, “but I hope he never warms up to me.” She hopped up with a jaunty little salute to the two. “I’d way rather be out there doing stuff than sitting here listening to you talk about malls and rocks. Later!”

Truth was, within a varga of arriving at the edge of the universe, she’d insulted Mister Pretty Prince directly to his face and dared him, with aggressive body language pressed far too close to his personal space, to _do something about it._

She’d figured that, when he let her walk away with all her limbs still on and little more than a mild scolding for her insolence, she had been right about his soft palmed ways. Just some sweet little baby boy. Didn’t even let his guard dog shoot her, though General Narti’s gun had been pointed. Pathetic. She thought she’d leave the next evening, not wanting to even bother with the charade.

Lotor had proceeded to work her to the bone for five consecutive quintents, and by the time she’d learned he was being passive aggressive she was already committed to the bit. He’d eased up, somewhere halfway through the second movement, and now the game was truly afoot. There was a pettiness in him that matched her own, though she couldn’t tell if that was what he was genuinely like, or if he’d simply been clever enough to parse it’d work on her.

And it was, admittedly, kinda working on her. She wouldn’t exactly say that she respected the man, though seeing his prowess in a fight had certainly lessened her disrespect. She wouldn’t exactly say that she liked him, either. 

But so far he’d been fun. At the very least, she wasn’t bored. There was always something to do, around this hunk of junk cruiser, and the more she proved herself as capable, the more daring risks he demanded she take.

She was happy enough to help him out with his weird, enigmatic goals. She didn’t actually know what the guy was doing, though it was clear he was doing _something._ She didn’t really need the details, as long as he kept poking and prodding at her, searching for her limits and forcing her to push them further. She’d skip out when she got tired of this place. But until then, she figured she’d stay. 

Mongrels stick together, and all that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/Concrit always welcome!


	3. Violence

Zethrid’s knees hit the harsh metal and she nearly overbalanced, her bound hands and head wound making it difficult to maneuver. She spat out a glob of blood, not particularly belligerent yet, just trying to sort herself before this show got on the road. Fuck, her face hurt. At least her eyeball hadn’t gotten hit, she’d just have one hell of a scar _right_ underneath it.

“Cadet!” General Tarrisk boomed, a man about as large as a Renmoorian Wartrip with a temper to match. “Do you have _any_ idea what a Galra has to do to get classified as ‘too violent’ on _my_ ship?!”

Zethrid swallowed around a swelling cheek and gave him her most winning grin. “Actually, yeah, considering I just did it.”

A tick and a half later she was reorienting herself and lifting back up off the floor. 

“Did you have to hit the cheek that already has a bruise?”

“Listen here you half-breed whelp!” General Tarrisk shouted, gripping her by her ripped collar and hoisting her up by the shirt. “I’m doing the talking around here!”

“Uncuff me and we can have a _conversation,”_ she spat in return. 

“You’re already six feet deep; you shouldn’t want me to put you there any faster!”

“Legally you can’t,” Zethrid huffed, and felt her pinky snap as she landed on it, thrown back to the ground. The boot on her throat wasn’t overly fun either.

“Oh do enlighten me,” her headmaster growled, grinding on her windpipe.

“Didn’t kill anyone,” Zethrid wheezed, “Didn’t--hhgk--destroy Empire property equal to or more than 3000 GAC. Didn’t--fuck, let me--breathe!”

She gasped as the boot came off, and coughed roughly, spitting up more blood. “Didn’t insult the emperor. Didn’t instigate treason. I’m squeaky fucking clean, teach.”

She laughed as he hauled her up by the collar once again, and grinned, wide and bloody at him. “Worst you can do is banish me.”

“Oh is that the _worst_ now?” he asked.

It took a lot of core strength, and plenty of leg muscle too, to kick someone when being suspended in the air. Fortunately, Zethrid was very strong.

She landed on her side, broken pinky throbbing and open wounds and bruises alight. A furious howl was her only warning for the incoming blows to her stomach, shins, and finally, face.

She faded into a pained and blurry consciousness a little later, and was really only cognizant enough to realize that she was being dragged, and snatches of conversation.

“...really? She’s not even p..t second puberty yet…”

“..o cares? Sh… meat anyway…”

“...eel bad.”

“... Lotor’s problem now.”

A door must have closed. 

She must have lost consciousness again. Or at least, fallen asleep.

\--

Of all the bosses Zethrid could’ve landed with, she guessed Prince Lotor was. Fine. He hadn’t let her _do_ anything until she was fully and officially an adult, which was _stupid as hell,_ but now that she was off deskwork things were. Fine. Anything, at least, was better than General Tarrisk’s training ship. 

But all good things must come to an end, and Zethrid was very good at wrecking shit. 

“You broke protocol,” Prince Lotor said without preamble. She liked that about him, too. He didn’t ask shit-stupid rhetorical questions to try and make her feel bad.

“I did,” she said, standing at uncomfortable attention. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she got a summons after going off script. Then again, she hadn’t been expecting a summons. She sorta assumed she would’ve been cuffed and reprimanded the moment she set foot back in the main fleet. 

The eyeless wonder just standing there _staring_ at her probably didn’t help with Zethrid’s discomfort. Or the cat. What the hell was even up with that cat? Focus. Was she nervous? Fuck, was she nervous?? No, no, she wasn’t, she was pissed about being there and pissed that Prince Lotor wasn’t acting right.

“Would you care to explain _why?”_ he asked. Patiently, almost, like he actually wanted to know. That pissed her off, too. She knew a leading question when she heard it; how dare he talk down to her!

“Listen, if you’re looking for a rational explanation, I don’t have one,” she snapped at him, her fur on end and wanting to claw into him. General Narti would _definitely_ kill her, if he didn’t kill her first. She needed to sink her fangs into something. Punch. Blow something up. 

“No?”

Zethrid flung her hands up, “What kind of answer do you want? I just crave violence, okay?!”

How could he be so much shorter than her and still appear as though he was looking down at her? She was going to fucking maul him.

“So your deviance is a result of your bloodlust?”

She growled, baring her fangs at him, and he cooly raised an eyebrow.

“...Do you wish to fight me, Zethrid?”

The question might have struck her as odd, if she wasn’t already so wound up. Her earlier cravings returned and mingled with the fury she felt at the man before her, singing out for blood and drumming in her ears.

“You think you can take me?”

His eyes went to the biceps that were thicker than his thighs, her powerful legs, her core, her big fangs, back up to her face.

“I’m sure I’ll manage.”

It turned out, walking in the same hallway as someone you were going to fight and actively hated in the moment was about as awkward as it was infuriating. Prince Lotor was cool as a cucumber, striding towards the large room they used to spar and wrestle in, but Zethrid just wanted to smash him against a wall right then and there. By the time she finally had a sword in her hand and enough space to move, she was all but salivating.

General Narti’s presence failed to matter to her. She had a tiny purple target and she was ready to bear down on him with the full brunt of her fury. 

She swung hard and she swung fast. In speed, they were nearly evenly matched, he was only slightly quicker, but he was dexterous too. He knew better than to think he could take one of her swings head on, but his endless parrying and dodging, the extremely _near_ misses she made over and over again, only added to the stewpot of her rage. 

She was approaching a familiar climax, a point where her mind hit a wall and something had to give. Usually her opponents’ bones. She couldn’t kill him, she never lost that thread, but she could take him down, she could taste his blood if she could just land a hit she _knew_ it would sing sweet violence.

She loved this. Genuinely, truly loved this. The call of battle, of pain, of subjugation, the clarity provided when it was just her, her weapon, and her target. Nothing in her head but the tension and the glee. Rage was just the fuel burned to get her here.

“You are extraordinarily powerful,” Lotor stated, right on the cusp of her mind and adrenaline’s eclipse. 

An unexpected blow to the back of her knee had her down, for a moment too long.

“You have been riding on that power.”

He disarmed her, and she felt something inside her give as he tilted her chin up with the tip of his blade. Something snapped with the loss.

She’d never been felled by a _single_ opponent before. 

In her anger’s newfound absence, she felt. Stunned?

“But power is meaningless without _direction_ and _control.”_ He lowered his blade, tip pointed at the metal floor she was kneeling on.

Kneeling before her prince. Ha, that was kind of funny, actually.

“I can offer you that control, Zethrid,” Prince Lotor stated, and she’d never focused so intently on another Galra’s words before. “Mine will be the hand that guides you. I see so much potential within you, like ore to be refined into a blade. But you must work _with_ me.”

He extended his free hand, hanging in the space between them. 

“I can only meet you halfway.”

Zethrid’s breathing was loud in her ears. So was her pulse.

She reached out, and clasped his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/concrit always appreciated!


	4. Weakness

“Please, sir,” Acxa begged frantically, “I was framed! I didn’t do this. Sir, you know I wouldn’t!”

“Yes, I know,” Captain Markov said tiredly, rubbing at his forehead with his elbow on his desk. “You’re far too cowardly to attempt something like this.”

While being called a coward wasn’t exactly flattering, Acxa took relief in the fact that Captain Markov believed her.

That relief was short lived.

“But even though I know you wouldn’t, all the evidence says you did.”

“Sir, surely there’s a way to investigate--”

“This _was_ the investigation,” he snapped, his glare making her stand up all the straighter. “And we found rebellious writing and planetsider’s clothes in your living quarters and your workstation.”

“But I didn’t--”

_“‘But but but,’_ it doesn’t matter!” he mocked. “Your loyalty to the empire was brought into question and found lacking. Officially, you’re a traitor, Acxa.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh spare me the fucking waterworks.”

She broke her posture briefly to scrub at her stinging eyes, teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached.

“Look,” he sighed, “I know you’re a coward and a disgrace. And a ruler-assed brown noser. So does just about everyone on this ship. I know you would never actually have the guts to go through with literally any of this. So I’m gonna do something nobody’s done in… oh, going on a thousand decaphoebes at this point.”

He clicked around on his screen, searching for a form.

“I’m exiling you. You can go kiss the banished prince’s ass.”

He found the form he wanted and began filling it out, giving Acxa a much-needed tick to breathe and collect herself. She was used to the insults, belittling as they were. She supposed she should be grateful she wasn’t currently, actively being executed. Her lower lip was bleeding. The pain almost helped.

“There’s a supply ship heading out of Ladnok’s territory to drop off some off-model sentries. If you hurry, you’ll probably be able to catch it.”

Captain Markov stood, rounded his desk and handed Acxa the small thumbdrive that held her updated status on it. He then clapped a hand down heavily on her shoulder, and she swayed slightly with it, eyes staring vacantly into the middle distance.

“If you weren’t so easy to push around, you wouldn’t have been framed, you know,” he stated. “It’s your fault for being so weak. Maybe this’ll finally convince you to grow a spine, mm?”

He patted her shoulder twice and returned to his desk chair. “Collect your things and get off my ship.”

Acxa turned mutely, her posture held in place only by the years of rigorous diligence.

In the doorway, he called after her. “I expect a ‘thank you sir’ out of you, halfblood.”

The humiliation closed off her throat.

“Th--” she swallowed, fist trembling around the thumb drive. “Thank you, sir.”

He didn’t respond.

She left.

Her room was worse upon reentry, the ruined chaos strewn about what had once been rigid cleanliness. She was meticulously neat. She prided herself on her organization. But now all her drawers were pulled out, their contents scattered. Her bedding was overturned, most of it ripped, her personal desk was on its side, and her bathroom was untraversable. 

Her knees buckled, briefly. Her chin wobbled, and trying to get it to stop only made the wobbling worse. Her breaths were shuddering, her cheeks hot, eyes stinging. 

She forced a deep breath, and made her body move. She salvaged what hadn’t been busted or ripped. Almost all of her personal effects, few though they had been, were broken beyond repair. She kept the halves of her father’s silvery marble, settling them into her bag like she wouldn’t immediately lose them.

Two unwelcome faces were waiting for her in the hallway, when she reopened the door.

“Awww, look! She’s about to cry!”

“Not in the mood,” Acxa said, speed walking down the hall at a quick pace. If she took the departing quintessence supplier to the Vigetian Hub, she could buy passage to Ladnok’s fleet. Ideally the ship heading towards Prince Lotor would still be there. Otherwise, she’d have to find some other means of transportation to the edge of the universe.

“We were just so concerned, you know? Hearing those _awful_ allegations against our little miss prim and proper.”

Cruel laughter rose behind her, close on her heels. She wished her legs were longer.

A heavy arm slammed into the doorway in front of her, her now-ex-coworker effectively blocking off her path.

“C’mon, don’t you wanna tell us about it?” she asked.

Acxa swallowed hard. “I have a ship to catch.”

“Oh yeah? What happens if you miss it?”

She didn’t know. Maybe Captain Markov would kill her. Maybe these two would laugh about that, too.

“Please let me through.”

Another pair of heavy arms settled around her shoulders from behind, a tail flickering in and out of the corners of her peripheral.

_”Please let me through,”_ he mocked. “That really all you got, princess?”

Acxa’s fists clenched so hard they drew crescents of blood. She wanted, so badly, to just screw the consequences and bash these two’s teeth in. She knew it was them that framed her.

But they were twice her size each, and two of them and only one of her, and no one was on her side here, and their fight instructors had neglected her anyway. She was useless, and knew it, and knew she wouldn’t win any fight.

The two burst out laughing again.

“Even now, you’re too fucking scared to fight us, huh? Even when you have nothing left to lose!”

Acxa was suddenly shoved forward, stumbling.

“Have fun in exile!” they called, and Acxa took off quickly, before they changed their minds and came back for more.

She barely made it onto the transport in time, and had only a dobosh of warp speed before they were at the Hub, and she had to transfer, and warp again. 

The Galra overseeing the loading and unloading process gave her a bored scowl, but waved off her attempts to explain her presence.

“Yeah, yeah, Captain Markov let the boss know you were coming. This way.”

She hated that the guard knew. She hated that multiple people knew. She knew she was never going to see any of them again, but humiliation burned through her.

“Here,” the guard said, waving her clipboard at the open hatch. “You made it just in time. It’s departing…” she checked the clock, “Now. Get on.”

“Thanks,” Acxa said tightly, gripping the strap of her bag. She walked up the ramp, into the cargo hold of the ship, but… she didn’t see a door to the rest of it? Just rows of sentries.

“Wait, where--”

“Bye, traitor,” the guard said, hatch closing and leaving Acxa in perfect, total darkness.

Shipped off among busted sentries too flawed for Empire use but technically too valuable to just throw to the trash. Shipped off for the edge of the universe, where those in exile worked for all eternity to prove their worth, to return to the Empire they all knew would never actually let them back.

And there she was. Not a person, just a thing. A tool that maybe Prince Lotor could use, if anyone could want her at all.

At least the sentries were all powered down.

She didn’t think she’d be able to handle it, if something recorded her. When she finally collapsed. When she finally pounded her fists against the unforgiving floor, and wailed.

\--

The first new exile in a thousand years had garnered some attention, the people here all having known each other for millennia longer than she’d even been alive. She felt their eyes on her at all times. Judging her. Seeing if she measured up. An outsider, an errant thread attempting to sew into the tapestry they’d already woven. 

She worked hard, and she kept her head down.

Strangely enough, the people here seemed to… _let her?_ Keep her head down?

The Galra here weren’t anything like what she was used to. Occasionally someone would elbow her about working too hard, but even that didn’t seem overly malicious. More like a joke, almost, one she couldn’t quite parse.

Asking questions about her job was generally met with patient, informative answers, and the information given was never intentionally falsified so she would screw up. Questions about the overall nature of what they were doing out here, however, were met with brick walls.

And she didn’t even feel like they were locking her out? When the people around her said they didn’t know, it genuinely seemed like they just… didn’t know. They did their work, they sent their results up the chain of command, they clocked out for the day.

The fact that they only had 10 varga work shifts and there was _planetside food here_ nearly gave Acxa a conniption, at first. Apparently one of the generals had a taste for the stuff, and Prince Lotor believed that overworking his staff would only be of detriment in the long run. Acxa stuck to proper food goo, and had no idea what she would even do with that extra time, so she stayed on her computer for longer than most.

Sometimes people would ask her to switch tasks with them. Personally, she’d much rather do a stack of paperwork that would take, what, two vargas tops to knock out? But for whatever reason her coworkers seemed to like the work that involved standing on guard, which frankly bored Acxa out of her mind. She wasn’t sure if the people who asked to trade were pitying her or not. It didn’t keep her from agreeing, though.

She was… nearly happy, past the edge of the Empire. Among so many other half and part-bloods, the worst she’d get called was “kinda intense,” nobody shoved her around just because they could, and her work was engaging, even if she didn’t understand the full scope of what she was doing.

So naturally when Prince Lotor himself approached her workstation late one evening, she panicked.

“Vrepit sa!” she greeted, snapping to her feet and saluting crisply. 

“Vrepit sa,” he returned elegantly, “You’re the one who filed these reports?” 

He handed her a pad and she tabbed through them. “Yes sir.” She felt dizzy. She felt _sick._ What had been wrong with them? She’d done everything the way she’d been taught! Had she gotten too comfortable and allowed a misstep to become part of her _process?_

“I’d noticed the recent increase in quality,” Prince Lotor stated, and her breath caught for a whole new reason.

He’d--

Really?

“When your supervisor informed me of the traded shifts, and that these were all your work, I figured I ought to meet you. You’ve done very well.”

She--

Was experiencing feelings. She. Oh. She didn’t.

“Thank you, sir,” she squeaked, clearing her throat with hot cheeks after.

“Acxa, was it?”

“Yes sir.”

“I would like to promote you.”

What.

“I could use someone diligent and good at following orders in my chain of command. Particularly with talent for the more bureaucratic side of things. Would you be amicable?”

She couldn’t possibly convey to him just how much his single instance of praise had changed. She would readily die for this man, in that moment.

“Yes sir,” she said, “Anything you need me to do.”

“Perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/concrit always appreciated!


End file.
